The Masters: Teenager Guan provides taste of China's golfing ambition

By Piers Edwards, CNN

Updated 12:04 PM ET, Thu April 11, 2013

China's golfers on the rise8 photos

China's golfers on the rise – Guan Tianlang, now 14, qualified for the 2013 Masters when -- as the youngest player in the field, then rated 490th in the world amateur rankings -- he beat a host of senior golfers to win the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Thailand. Guan of China became the youngest player to make the cut at Augusta and finished as the top amateur.

Hide Caption

1 of 8

China's golfers on the rise8 photos

Prowling with Tiger – Guan enjoyed a practice round with his hero Tiger Woods, whose first Masters title came in 1997 -- the year before the Chinese teenager was born.

Hide Caption

2 of 8

China's golfers on the rise8 photos

Teen talent – Andy Zhang was just 14 when he became the youngest player to compete in the history of the 2012 U.S. Open, a tournament first played in 1895.

Hide Caption

3 of 8

China's golfers on the rise8 photos

Girl power – Jing Yan -- then 16 -- became the youngest Chinese female golfer to ever play in a major, after comfortably qualifying for the 2012 British Open at Royal Liverpool.

Hide Caption

4 of 8

China's golfers on the rise8 photos

History maker – Feng Shanshan also made history in 2012 when she became the first Chinese golfer -- either male or female -- to win a major. The 23-year-old, the highest-ranked Chinese player in the world, won by two strokes in the United States to win the LPGA Championship.

Hide Caption

5 of 8

China's golfers on the rise8 photos

Pre-teen prodigy – Ye Wocheng made European Tour history when he teed up at the 2013 China Open aged 12 years and 242 days, having come through a regional qualifying event.

Hide Caption

6 of 8

China's golfers on the rise8 photos

Top of the class – The schoolboy juggles his studies at Dongguan Middle School in Guangdong Province with his golfing career.

Hide Caption

7 of 8

China's golfers on the rise8 photos

Tough start – He carded a seven-over-par 79 in the opening round of the China Open at Binhai Lake Golf Course on May 2.

Hide Caption

8 of 8

Story highlights

Guan Tianlang will become the youngest player in Masters history on Thursday

During China's Cultural Revolution, golf had been considered too bourgeois a pastime

The legendary Jack Nicklaus may have won the most titles, a 21-year-old Tiger Woods may have been the youngest champion and Gary Player may have made the most appearances, but a little-known Chinese golfer will be added to the illustrious list of Masters record-holders on Thursday.

For when Guan Tianlang steps onto the first tee, the Chinese teenager will become the youngest competitor -- at the age of 14 years and five months -- in the 80 years of the prestigious Augusta event, beating the previous record held by then 16-year-old Matteo Manassero.

The boy who has been taking time out of school in his home city Guangzhou earned his place at golf's top table when, as the youngest player in the field, he beat a host of senior players to win last year's Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Thailand.

He is just the latest of a small but expanding list of teenage -- and, remarkably, even pre-teen -- golfers to be impacting upon the highest echelons of golf, despite being drawn from a playing pool estimated to be no more than 600 teenage boys and girls.

Guan was just 13 when he became the youngest player to ever contest a European Tour event in 2012, the same year that Andy Zhang, then 14, became the youngest player in the history of the U.S. Open -- while that year's Women's British Open found the youngest Chinese female golfer to ever contest a major, Jing Yan, then 16.

Bubba Watson cries over Masters memory

Just Watched

CNN Explains: The Masters

Just last month, all were slightly upstaged by Ye Wocheng, who became the youngest golfer to qualify for a European Tour event -- at the age of just 12. Yes, that's right. Twelve.

"I don't think there's another country in the world that is putting as much into golf as China -- in terms of the resources, energy and money," says Michael Dickie, the Scotland-born head coach of China's women's Olympic team.

"Look at most other countries, they support players as amateurs but the support stops once they get to pro -- then, they're on their own and have to do it themselves.

"But our girls -- all they need to do is train. We do the logistics, which tournaments will suit them and where they should train. We also have a physio, fitness instructor, technical coaches and people arranging logistics, visa, flights and hotels.

"And the state is paying for it all. It is like a monster sponsorship program."

During China's Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, golf was considered to be too bourgeois a pastime and any existing courses were dug up, with the land returned to farmers.

Eight years after Chairman Mao's death, though, the first modern-day golf course was built -- in 1984 -- even if there was still a reluctance to invest fully in the sport in the nominally communist nation.

Eye-wateringly expensive

For with its 1.35 billion inhabitants representing nearly 20% of the world population -- yet the country's landmass amounting to just 6% of the planet's total land area -- land in China is decidedly scarce.

So it makes no sense for politicians to allocate great swathes to golf courses, especially given ecological concerns -- primarily over water use -- that accompany their operational capacity and the association with the wealthy elite.

Is McIlroy ready for the Masters?

Just Watched

Bubba Watson on momentous Masters

While the number of courses has quietly tripled in the last decade to over 600, golf is still very much a minority sport and even though significant growth is expected with the expansion of a middle class predicted to have doubled its 2010 level of 52 million by 2015, the sport is still eye-wateringly expensive.

So much so that a 2008 survey by professional services company KPMG established the average initiation cost of joining a Chinese golf club to be $53,000, with a regular round costing around $150 -- way beyond the reach of all but a fraction of the population.

But help is at hand for some following a decision taken in 2009 in, of all places, the Danish capital Copenhagen.

That was where the executive board of the International Olympic Committee voted to return golf to the Games in 2016 after a 112-year absence.

Overnight, the Chinese government -- which boasts a long history of investing in Olympic sports -- finally had a reason to back golf. Although figures are hard to come by, the intensity of their training programs indicates just how seriously the Chinese are taking a potential fairway to medals.

At his academy in Shanghai, Dickie has a team of 15 Olympic hopefuls, eight of whom attend full-time training, which is funded by a state who get value for money -- with the girls training six days a week if they are not contesting a tournament.

"On a normal day, we get up at 0630 and do a fitness session for an hour," he says. "After breakfast, we train until midday, when we rest until 1400.

"Then another two hours of training and then an hour of fitness training -- we are heavy on fitness training -- so it's three hours of fitness and five hours of golf. Quite intense."

A further indication of the Chinese ambition is that Australian legend Greg Norman has been formally brought on board to advise and identify the country's best golf talent, which is largely drawn from privileged backgrounds -- for obvious reasons -- but he won't struggle with one name for the ladies category.

Just Watched

Distraction: Tiny golf prodigy

Just Watched

Phelps rejects swimming comeback

Last year, Feng Shanshan -- now 23 -- became the first Chinese golfer to win a major when she claimed the LPGA Championship by two strokes, five years after she had earned her place on the LPGA Tour as a teenage amateur.

Ranked No. 8 in the world, she does not train with the team in Shanghai but looks a certainty for Brazil -- especially since the next best Chinese female golfers are ranked 160th and 285th respectively, whose improvements represent the major challenge for Dickie, Norman and co.

Those working on the country's male golfers have an even harder task, for there are only three Chinese in the top 500, with Liang Wenchong -- the 34-year-old whose best finish, by some distance, was eighth place in the 2010 U.S. PGA -- leading the way in 169th place.

But it won't be long before the fruits of China's investment -- now reaching the grassroots for the first time -- will be clear for world golf fans to see, says a man who knows just a thing or two about the sport.

"In China, they are incredibly passionate and you see how the game is growing," says Hank Haney, who coached Tiger Woods for six years and who now runs several golf schools.

"I know from my academy that Asian golfers are incredibly great students -- they're very, very focused and without a doubt, we're going to see more and more great golfers coming from Asian.

"It won't be long before China is a big part of that."

Perhaps just as long as it takes for Guan Tianlang, Andy Zhang, Ye Wocheng and the rest to exit their teenage years.

When Arnold Palmer drove up Magnolia Lane on the eve of the 1962 Masters, he was in a confident mood. This was to be his "Annus Mirabilis" -- the year he cemented his reputation as a global sporting superstar.